Should D&D Morality be Less PC?

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things that's been lacking in D&D, in terms of challenging the status quo, is the thinking. Everything is done up in modern terms in view of how people act, how they treat each other, etc...

Sure, the occassional dwarf elf thing, or now the tielfling dragonborn thing may pop up but the actual struggle against society itself seems to have fallen by the wayside.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. When I think about slavery and women as second class citizens, no offense to my fellow gamers, but i've seen a lot of them abuse the hell out of such a setting because they were "going with it".

For me, it works when there are slavers, when times are tough, when the kingdom is corrupt, when the law is not enough, when there are times all you can do is plot your revenge and wait your time.

It works for me because it pits the setting itself against the players. If players have to worry about being thrown into the slave pits and fight as gladiators or being chained to rowing boats, it puts the game in something more than just, "Yup, it done time to clean out the dungeon again. We best get while the light is good."

Mind you, I love Dungeon Crawls but if we're talking about appealing to all fans, wouldn't that include those who want the game to be darker and gritier?

Or is there too much chance of asshat abuse?

 

[Rex Blunder]

I'm happy for Wizards to leave D&D: The Racism and Sexism Module to a third party publisher.

Besides the other inherent issues, stuff like that should be setting stuff, not rules stuff.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm happy for Wizards to leave D&D: The Racism and Sexism Module to a third party publisher.

Besides the other inherent issues, stuff like that should be setting stuff, not rules stuff.

I agree about the setting side of it but the default setting is usually implied in the rules.

 

[Jawsh]

Yes and no. I think D&D should acknowledge the existence of slavery. I think D&D should acknowledge that there is prejudice in the world, based on race, tribe, gender, and class.

But I don't think the system should endorse these things. That is to say, I don't think women should have different stat bonuses than men.

I think Good-aligned characters should not be allowed to own slaves.

I don't think the game is as fun when it railroads the PCs by bossing them around, based on who the characters are, their gender, their race, their tribe, their religion, or their class. I prefer a setting that's more free, because then the players can feel like they have a say in their destiny.

There's something to be said for having to work for your freedom. But I just don't want to see a campaign setting so oppressive and ignorant that, socially, it's impossible for the PCs to advance no matter what great deeds they do.

I think there is some room to play with these kinds of ideas when you talk about evil-aligned realms. Maybe the PCs can go to bad places once in a while, but just like they can't always be dungeon-crawling, I think it would be tiring to keep them on their guard in a hostile land 24-7. They need a refuge.

 

[JoeGKushner]

My bad if I implied that women should have different stats.

In terms of holding people back based on social status, one of the things I found interesting in K J Parker's The Hammer is that one of the lead female characters becomes a doctor and it's pretty much accepted.

Jierel of Joriey is another excellent example.

In my 'mind' if you will, the players, while perhaps not exempt from things, by default aren't hindered by it.

Mind you I was also thinking about it working the other way around in that player characters who have some of that nobility who go out adventuring would quickly be disinherited by their families since no real noble family would want to be associated with what is essentially a wandering vagrant.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Interesting worlds need darker themes. Which themes are setting and location dependent, and should vary.

Also, while I don't advocate statistically separating gender, mostly for simplicity, it's not sexist if you did so accurately. Also, doing so might leave a sense of distaste among the fairer sex, which we want to avoid.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think 'authentic' portrayals of race, gender, religion, and any number of other difficult issues are not likely to make their way into the core game. The game has to be PG-13 to sell, and has to be extra careful because of the general biases against D&D.

I am, however, quite happy to see those issues explored in some form, as I think D&D is a wonderful artistic medium and a great venue for exploring all manner of topics, including "mature" ones.

 

[trancejeremy]

I'm not grasping what you are advocating for here, exactly.

D&D tends to be mostly based on medieval cultures - chattel slavery wasn't so much in it, as serfdom.

IIRC though, wasn't Dark Sun basically like that, though? (Don't remember, been a while).

And as to social status charts, sure you could add them (I think UA had them? Dragon did anyway), but for the most part adventurers are already pretty much lower class people anyway, or are once they become them. But again, while class existed, kings basically were essentially bandit kings or warlords originally. Only in recent times are they really considered sophisticated or whatever (and I'm not sure even then...)

 

[Elf Witch]

One of the things I enjoy about the Kingdom OF Kalalmar is that it has some mature themes take slavery it is legal and often there are slaves who are made slaves as punishment for a crime. There are groups who fight slavery like the Brotherhood of the Broken chain but a paladin has to be careful about going around breaking the law and freeing slaves.

There are races who don't get along and humans from different regions who don't like each other.

I prefer a more realistic system where there are some moral ambiguities going on.

 

[Wormwood]

Darker themes? Exploring those now with no problems.

 

[mmadsen]

One of the things that's been lacking in D&D, in terms of challenging the status quo, is the thinking. Everything is done up in modern terms in view of how people act, how they treat each other, etc...

For most of D&D's audience, anything resembling typical attitudes from the past is also breaking strong modern taboos -- and I suspect few modern players could play along with casual racism, sexism, nationalism, etc. without overreacting either against it or (nervously and "humorously") for it.

If you read enough history -- especially primary sources -- you learn to take such attitudes for granted, but many players struggle with even the littlest things, like lords expecting loyalty from their subjects, everyone understanding their station, etc.

So, if your group enjoys real history -- or pulp fiction by authors, like Howard, who read real history rather obsessively -- go for it. Otherwise, accept that a quasi-medieval mercenary company happens to have 21st-century university student values...

 

[JoeGKushner]

I think 'authentic' portrayals of race, gender, religion, and any number of other difficult issues are not likely to make their way into the core game. The game has to be PG-13 to sell, and has to be extra careful because of the general biases against D&D.

I am, however, quite happy to see those issues explored in some form, as I think D&D is a wonderful artistic medium and a great venue for exploring all manner of topics, including "mature" ones.

I'd buy that first arguement the second WoTC stops using cheesecake in its art.

 

[JoeGKushner]

So, if your group enjoys real history -- or pulp fiction by authors, like Howard, who read real history rather obsessively -- go for it. Otherwise, accept that a quasi-medieval mercenary company happens to have 21st-century university student values...

That I think is interesting because it gives the players different ways of thinking than the natives. One of the things that I enjoy about some fiction is how things are going the way they've gone for hundreds if not thousands of years precisely because that's the way things have gone and then the hero (or the PC) comes in and says, "Man, this is stupid. We need to do X" and begins to do so.

So much of modern D&D is set up where there everyone already has a modern mindset but yet everything else is stuck in the past. It creates a "man why haven't they fixed X, Y, and Z if they believe in A, B, and C."

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm not grasping what you are advocating for here, exactly.

D&D tends to be mostly based on medieval cultures - chattel slavery wasn't so much in it, as serfdom.

IIRC though, wasn't Dark Sun basically like that, though? (Don't remember, been a while).

And as to social status charts, sure you could add them (I think UA had them? Dragon did anyway), but for the most part adventurers are already pretty much lower class people anyway, or are once they become them. But again, while class existed, kings basically were essentially bandit kings or warlords originally. Only in recent times are they really considered sophisticated or whatever (and I'm not sure even then...)

In terms of slavery, if you go a little abroad, even now, it's still a problem. One of the reasons the United States destroyed the Barbary states was they were slave takers of United States Citizens and the live those slaves lived was not an easy one.

In many 'civilized' cultures, slavery is pretty much the way it is. Norsemen had slavery for example. Egyptians built an entire warrior caste off them as did the muslims with captured Christians.

 

[mmadsen]

One of the reasons the United States destroyed the Ottoman Empire...

Wait, what?

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'd buy that first arguement the second WoTC stops using cheesecake in its art.

I'm right with you there.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Wait, what?

Completely my fault. I was thinking of the Barbary states via 1778-1830

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

There's nothing wrong with the morality in D&D. I just wish some of the people who played it would wake up and smell the napalm; there's more to the world of moral philosophy than liberal Western jurisprudence and the Comics Code Authority.

 

[Jawsh]

There's nothing wrong with the morality in D&D. I just wish some of the people who played it would wake up and smell the napalm; there's more to the world of moral philosophy than liberal Western jurisprudence and the Comics Code Authority.

Citation needed

 

[mlund]

An interesting twist on morality is culpability. Imagine you have someone who is Good otherwise, but has a limited vision of what constitutes "people" that's been handed down to him by others? Do characters become Good because they realize the person-hood of the oppressed, or is do people realize that reality because they are Good?

That said, Good and Lawful Good people are the exception, not the rule. Most people are Unaligned. They are largely benign in their comfortable social context. They aren't particularly spiteful or malicious, but they don't look much past their own proverbial fence in terms of what ought to be as opposed to what is. Their necks aren't being stuck out for any strangers - which is the hallmark of a Good character.

Evil is more common than Good too, because it is easier and vastly more profitable in worldly terms.

- Marty Lund